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Cisco
® NetFlow Collector (NFC) 6.0 is a NetFlow data collection and aggregation product that supports data analysis and reporting. Cisco NFC empowers enterprises and service providers with actionable intelligence to optimize their network infrastructure for application delivery and network capacity planning. In addition, Cisco NFC is a critical enabler for business support applications such as usage-based billing and service-level objective (SLO) monitoring.

Cisco NFC delivers industry-leading performance for helping enable network engineers to cope with the high-volume flow data typical in large networks. It implements a scalable multitier architecture for collecting, normalizing, correlating, and aggregating data from NetFlow-enabled devices dispersed across geographically distributed networks. The architecture comprises two layers: Cisco NFC as the first tier and Multi-NFC (MNFC) as the new tier-two component. Cisco MNFC adds network-level correlation and time-based summarization, providing a central view for all distributed Cisco NFC implementations in the network. Typically, Cisco MNFC is deployed at the administrative control point of the network.

In keeping with the latest Cisco NetFlow enhancements, Cisco NFC supports all NetFlow formats. It also supports correlation across multiple data sources such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peering for Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF) resolution. In addition to supporting a large selection of predefined aggregation schemes, Cisco NFC offers the flexibility for users to define their own aggregation schemes. Configuration and traffic reports are delivered through an advanced user-friendly Web interface.

Cisco NFC supports standard and open interfaces and easily integrates with other report analysis applications.

Table 1 lists the features of Cisco NFC 6.0, and Table 2 gives the specifications for Cisco NFC 6.0.

Table 1. Features

Feature

Description

Cisco NetFlow Collector 6.0

Flexible aggregation scheme builder

Allows users to choose the aggregation that best solves their problem by selecting the most relevant keys and values. The user is not restricted to using predefined aggregation schemes.

BGP peering

Correlates NetFlow data with BGP attributes. The user can collect the amount of flows from one peering device or devices to another.

Note that the CPU, RAM, and disk space recommendations above are suggested, and that actual requirements are determined by your configuration and by the volume and uniqueness of NetFlow data that is received. Actual resource usage can vary greatly depending on these factors.

Using the Cisco Lifecycle Services approach, Cisco and its partners provide a broad portfolio of end-to-end services and support that can help increase your network's business value and return on investment. This approach defines the minimum set of activities needed, by technology and by network complexity, to help you successfully deploy and operate Cisco technologies and optimize their performance throughout the lifecycle of your network.